Family Counseling Near Me

You may be searching “family counseling near me” in order to nurture change and development within your family. Family counseling, also referred to as marriage and family counseling, family systems therapy, or family therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families and couples in intimate relationships. It often helps facilitate change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. This type of counseling emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health.

Why should I seek out family counseling near me?

As Clinical Director of Psychotherapy at Carolina Partners, Louise Newton, MSW, LCSW, SEP, shares, it may be a great time to consider family counseling if one or more family members are struggling with a mental illness. This is a great time to begin counseling because when one family member is struggling, the entire system as a whole is often struggling as well. The family unit often begins to acquire some symptoms of the mental illness. This is important to understand, because too often we think that if only one person in the family is struggling with mental illness, then only that one person needs help. We think if that one person would get better, than the rest of the family would be fine, too. However, this is contrary to what we know about mental illness. For example, many practitioners are now calling addiction a family disease, because it occurs in the whole system. In other words, it isn’t just one person struggling with addiction, depression, or anxiety. The entire family as a whole suffers.

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When should I seek out family counseling near me?

If you have a parent or a child with severe mental illness or addiction, if you are noticing that a family member’s behaviors have become disruptive to family life, or if you notice that a parent must focus on one child’s illness while other family members aren’t getting as much attention, then this might be a great time to search for family counseling near you.

What is the goal of family counseling?

The goal of family counseling is to nurture change or development and help family members understand why they may be acting and thinking in ways that are troubling or dangerous to themselves or others. This awareness often allows an individual, and consequently a family, to have more control over behavior and change these behaviors when possible.

Family counseling may focus on current or past problems, experiences, and thoughts. By talking with a trained, knowledgeable, and understanding professional, families can often gradually understand more about their family unit and the problems they are facing.

One form of family counseling is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is a treatment that focuses on the relationship between an individual’s, and consequently a family’s, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. A CBT therapist will explore the links between the thoughts and emotions that occur prior to disruptive behaviors. By establishing these connections, individuals and families often learn to identify and change inappropriate or negative thought patterns and, as a consequence, can address the associated behaviors.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is another form of psychotherapy that combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness. Research indicates that DBT is effective in treating patients who present varied symptoms and behaviors associated with spectrum mood disorders, sexual abuse, chemical dependency, chronic anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder.

Why should I seek out family counseling near me at Carolina Partners?

At Carolina Partners, our professional associates have experience dealing with virtually every mental health care issue. Areas we treat include, but are not limited to:

If you think your family would benefit from working with a licensed medical professional, please reach out to us at Carolina Partners in Mental HealthCare PLLC at 919-929-9610. You can also search our specialists, and search for family counseling near you, here at our online portal.